The poster had bought on e-bay a coin which was said to have been issued by this monarch, who was also alleged to have been one of the three kings who visited the baby Jesus.

Ah, but my suspicions would have been raised by the mention of the three kings. The Bible record calls them magoi, which is nearer "astrologer" than "king", and nowhere in the Bible account does it say there were three of them, or give any number at all. So, if someone tried to sell me something belonging to one of the "three kings", I would ask them if they were also selling Brooklyn Bridge first.

My fault. The post I was referring to did actually say that he was alleged to be one of the Magi, rather than one of the three kings. So he is alleged to have been a magus and a king. Put it down to the stress of a bad connection: I had to try three or four times to get most AWAD pages at lunch time.

Caspar,Balthazar, and Melchior are names given the Three Kings aka The Magi, in my Catholic School ... although I found no listing for Caspar in the Catholic Encyclopedia.Or for Iz-whatsis for that matter.http://newadvent.org/cathen/a.htm for anyone interested.wow

Caspar,Balthazar, and Melchior are names given the Three Kings aka The Magi, in my Catholic School

Does anybody know where these names comes from? Since the Magi in the Gospel are both numberless and nameless, who decided that there were three of them, and that they were called C(G)aspar, Balthazar, and Melchior? Is this just a case of some ancient reading his kid a story , and being pestered,"But Dad, what were their names?"

Tsuwm recommended John McPhee in a post some time ago, and the only book of his my local branch of the library had was something called "The Pine Barrens". Now, if this were the title of a novel, I might have at least picked it up to read the summary, but never in all my born days would I have just wandered by and picked out a book about a tract of land. But it's good! Mr. McPhee has clearly donefirsthand investigation into his subject area, and has a writing style that will keep your interest. Ex.: "In the vernacular of the pines, huckleberries are blueberries, wild or cultivated. Huckleberries are also huckleberries, and this confuses outsiders but not pineys. Fred explained to me, when I pressed him, that "hog huckleberries" are huckleberries and "sugar huckleberries" are blueberries."

There are some words in here that I'd never heard of, too,such as 'fykes' that are used to trap snapping turtles. I learned that relatives of one of our members live there, a rare tree frog, Hyla andersoni.

I wrote to tsuwm that I'd finished this book, and he informed that his favorite is "Coming out of the Country", a story of Alaska and Alaskans. Sounds intriguing.

if my amazon order ever shows up (supposedly it has already shipped), it will include McPhee's "Annals of a Former World", which is a compendium of four of his previously published works: Basin and Range, a study of the mountainous lands between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevadas; In Suspect Terrain, a grand overview of the Appalachian mountain system; Rising from the Plains, a history of the Rocky Mountains set largely in Wyoming; and Assembling California, a survey of the ongoing volcanic and tectonic processes; plus a fifth unpublished book, Crossing the Craton, which introduces the continent's ancient core, underlying what is now Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska. Reader reviews indicate that there is a bit of repetition, and a lack of clear diagrams to explain some of the more technically challenging processes, but overall it has received stellar feedback.

The 3 KingsIt's verifiable by checking the N.T. text that they were called "wise men", not kings, and no number is specified. Apparently there was, early on in the history of Christianity, the assumption that there were three of them because three gifts are mentioned. Also, there seems to have been the assumption that they were kings because the gifts were extraordinarly costly (and the journey would have been a huge expense). I'm not sure when/where the names were made up; Google might help.

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